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Louis Lefebvre

Associate Professor
Biology Department
McGill University, Canada


Feeding Innovations in Birds: Implications for Ecology, Evolution, Neurobiology and Cognition  video
Guest Lecture for Fall 2001 Graduate Seminar:  
Social Learning, Social Intelligence, and Social Brains


© 2001 CISAB ABSTRACT:
 In the field, social learning often serves to propagate innovative feeding behaviors. Classic examples of this are the opening of milk bottles by tits and the washing of potatoes by Japanese macaques. After years of comparative experiments on correlates of social learning (foraging ecology, neophobia, individual learning), I have shifted to the correlates of innovative feeding. Comparative data on innovation can be obtained on a wide array of species. Because it is easy to quantify, several questions can be tested in ecology (is innovation correlated with colonisation success and urbanisation?), evolution (does innovation favor speciation? does it reduce vulnerability to extinction?), neurobiology (which areas of the telencephalon are most closely involved with innovation in birds and primates?) and cognition (is innovativeness positively correlated with learning and tool use? is it negatively correlated with spatial memory?).
 

RELATED READING
 © 2001 CISAB Lefebvre, Louis, Nikoleta Juretic, Nektaria Nicolakakis, Sara Timmermans. Submitted 2001. Is the link between forebrain size and feeding innovations caused by confounding variables? A study of Australian and North American birds. Animal Cognition.  (Full Text PDF)

Webster, Sandra J. and Louis Lefebvre. In press 2001. Problem solving and neophobia in a Columbiforme-Passeriform assemblage in Barbados. Animal Behavior 61.  (Full Text PDF)

Golberg, Joanna L., James W.A. Grant, and Louis Lefebvre. 2001. Effects of the temporal predictability and spatial clumping of food on the intensity of competitive aggression in the Zenaida dove. Behavioral Ecology 12(4):490-495.  (Full Text PDF)

Lefebvre, L., P. Whittle, E. Lascaris, and A. Finkelstein. 1996.Feeding innovations and forebrain size in birds. Animal Behaviour 53:549-560.

Seferta, A., P.J. Guay, E. Marzinotto, and L. Lefebvre. (In press 2001) Learning differences between feral pigeons and zenaida doves: The role of neophobia and human proximity. Ethology.

Nicolakakis, N. and L. Lefebvre. 2000. Forebrain size and innovation rate in European birds: Feeding, nesting and confounding variables. Behaviour 137:1415-1429.

Lefebvre, L., B. Palameta, and K.K. Hatch. 1996. Is group-living associated with social learning? A comparative test of a gregarious and a territorial Columbid. Behaviour 133:241-261.

Dolman, C.S., J. Templeton, and L. Lefebvre. 1996. Mode of foraging competition is related to tutor preference in Zenaida aurita. Journal of Comparative Psychology 110(1):45-54.



ONLINE RESOURCES:
 Dr. Lefebvre's departmental page
PubMed search for L Lefebvre publications



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